Groucho Marxism

Questions and answers on socialism, Marxism, and related topics

  • Ending this system of war and crisis

    US and Israeli missiles are currently raining down on Iran. Neither Donald Trump nor Benjamin Netenyahu are motivated by ending the suffering of the Iranian people, despite what they might claim. Instead, both are motivated by distracting the citizens of their respective nations from their growing disaffection. Reports are emerging that the US is attempting to arm minorities within Iran with a view to encouraging them to take on the Iranian government. But the implosion of the Iranian dictatorship, if that were to happen, would be very unlikely to produce a new government that would bend the knee to US and Israeli imperialism. As the negative consequences of the war inevitably rack up, Trump and Netenyahu will find themselves under increasing pressure to find an off ramp.

    It is difficult to see what such an off ramp will look like. By attacking Iran, the US and Israel may have bitten off more than they can chew. Last week the US was forced to hastily redeploy missiles from South Korea to Middle East, which led to South Korea’s president having to reassure the public that the country is still able to deter threats from the North. Meanwhile, Trump’s MAGA base is rapidly losing faith in the president, who came into office on a promise of ending wars, not starting them. Trump himself apparently believes that he has divine purpose and intelligence after surviving that (possibly staged) assassination event. But he will surely go down as one of the worst presidents in US history. It feels as though we are witnessing the collapse of the American empire in real time.

    Britain is likely to be hit hard by the global turmoil created by the conflict. Households across the UK are once again bracing for a rise in energy bills, with oil prices soaring as global supply chains are thrown into disarray. Energy bills have been predicted to rise by around £160 per household on average this year. I suspect this will turn out to be an underestimate. Of course, energy companies and government ministers claim that these increases are an inevitable result of rising global energy prices. We have heard this story before. Isn’t it funny how when energy costs fall, energy companies keep the gains; but when energy costs rise, these increased costs get passed on to the consumer? It’s almost as if the whole system is rigged!

    The war is also adding to Keir Starmer’s difficulties. By equivocating on the conflict Starmer has managed to pull off his usual trick of annoying everyone across the entire political spectrum. Has there ever been a more inept politician?! Well, Trump maybe. No doubt Starmer’s slightly critical stance on the US and Israel’s actions is due in part to the scale of the anti-war movement in the UK. Labour is facing wipe-out in the forthcoming local elections and Starmer must know that uncritical support for the war will only make things worse. Even so, the predominant feeling amongst working people in Britain is one of powerlessness. We are not powerless though. The working class in Britain and internationally is a potential superpower that can put an end to these imperial wars for good.

    There are several ways in which we can go about doing this. Trade Unions can call anti-war demonstrations; students can organize in schools and on campuses to protest for a future free from war; and we can all build a mass workers’ party that stands anti-war candidates in elections. We are seeing some of these things happening already, for example with students and workers protesting against the war across the UK. But we need to do more. It should be clear to everyone by now that capitalism means war. We must fight for socialist change in Britain and across the world to bring an end to this imperial warmongering once and for all.

  • Plain velars in the satem languages

    In a recent blog post I summarized some phonological conditions under which Proto-Indo-European (PIE) plain velars remained intact in the satem languages. In this blog post, I will go through these phonological conditions in a bit more detail. Specifically, I will provide evidence that in all the satem languages, palatalization of plain velars was blocked after *s and non-syllabic *n, and also before *r; in all the satem languages apart from Armenian, palatalization was blocked before *o; in Indic, palatalization was blocked before *s; in Balto-Slavic and Albanian, palatalization was blocked before resonants and *u when followed by a back vowel; and in Baltic, palatalization was blocked before *st. Let’s start with the position after *s.

    Blocking of palatalization after *s was discussed recently by Woodhouse (2014) and is well attested, e.g.: *(s)kelH- ‘cut’ > Sanskrit kalā́, Armenian čelkʿem, Albanian hel, Lthuanian skeliù, Gothic skilja (Pokorny 1959:923-927); *(s)kerH- ‘cut’ > Skt. apa-skara-, Avs. čarəman-, Arm. kʿerem, Alb. shqerr, Lth. sker̃sti, Old Church Slavonic črěvo, Greek κείρω (Pok.:938-947); *(s)keuH-, *(s)kuH- ‘cover’ > Skt. skunāti, Lth. kẽvalas, Russian kútatь, Grk. σκύ̄νια (Pok.:951-953). Note that the *s was subsequently lost in many of these reflexes. As noted by Woodhouse (2014), this blocking did not operate before front vowels in Iranian, e.g.: *(s)keH₁i-, *(s)kH₁i- ‘shadow’ > Skt. chāyā́, Avs. a-saya-, Alb. hie, Latvian seja, OCS sijati, Grk. σκιά̄ (Pok.:917-918).

    Blocking of palatalization after non-syllabic *n was established by Steensland (1973:88) and is also well attested, e.g.: *H₂enk- ‘bend’ > Skt. añcati, Avs. anku-, Arm. ankiwn, Lth. anka, OCS  jęčьmy, Grk. ἀγκών (Pok.:45-47), c.f. *H₂ek- ‘sharp’ > Skt. aśáni-, Avs. asəŋga-, Arm. aseɫn, Alb. athëtë, Lth. ašnìs, OCS osla, Grk. ἀκή (Pok.:19-22); *lung- ‘break’ > Alb. lungë, c.f. *leug- ~ *lug-  ‘break’ > Skt. rujáti, Avs. uruxti, Arm. lucanem, Lth. láužiu, Grk. λυγρός (Pok.:686); *meng- ~ *mong- ‘beautify’ > Skt. maṅgalá-, Ossetian mäng, Alb. mangë, Lth. mánga, Grk. μάγγανον (Pok.: 731); *spreng- ‘turn’ > Lth. sprengė́ti, c.f. *sprg- ‘turn’ > Grk. σπάργω (Pok.:991-992). Note that this blocking did not operate after *m, e.g.: *H₂emg- ‘narrow’ > Avs. ązaŋhē, OCS ǫžǫ, Hit. hamanki (Pok.: 42-43, Rix (ed.) 2001:264-265).

    Blocking of palatalization before *r was also established by Steensland (1973:43), and is again well attested, e.g.: *gerH₂- ~ *grH₂- ‘shriek’ > Skt. járatē, Arm. krunk, Alb. ngurónj, Lth. gùrti, OCS graču, Grk. γέρην (Pok.:383-385); *kerH₂- ~ *korH₂- ~ *krH₂- ‘shriek’ > Skt. śāri-, krkara-, Arm. sareak, karkač̣, Alb. sorrë, Lth. šárka, kirkiù, OCS soraka, krъknǫti, Grk. κέρκαξ (Pok.:567-671); *suekruH₂ ~ *suekurH₂ ‘in-law’ > Skt. śváśura-, Avs. xvasura-, Arm. skesur, Alb. vjehërr, Lth. šẽšuras, OCS svekry (Pok.:1043-1044). Palatalization was sometimes introduced analogically before*r in Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic, e.g.: *gerH₂- ~ *grH₂- ‘grow’ > Skt. járate, Avs. azarəšant-, Arm. cer, Alb. grurë, Lth. žìrnis, OCS zьrěti, Grk. ἐγείρω (Pok.:390-391).

    There are many examples to back up the claim that palatalization was blocked before *o Balto-Slavic and Albanian, e.g.: *bherghos ‘mountain’ > Arm. berj, OCS brěgъ, Gothic baurgs, c.f. *bhergh- ~ *bhrgh- ‘high’ > Skt. barháyati, Avs. bərəzant- (Pok.:140-141); *kei- ~ *kei- ‘lie down’ > Skt. śáyē, Avs. saēte, Arm. sēr, Lth. šeimýna, káimas, OCS sěmьja, Grk. κεῖται (Pok.:539-540); *kerH₂- ~ *korH₂- ~ *krH₂- ‘horn’ > Skt. śíras-, Avs. sarah-, Arm. sar, Alb. ka, Lth. šìršė, kárvė, OCS sъrъšenь, Russian koróva, Grk. κάρ (Pok.:674-577). The unpalatalized velar sometimes spread analogically, e.g.: *legh- ~ *logh- ‘lie down’ > Alb. lagje, Lth. pa-lėgỹs, Bulgarian ležǫ, Grk. λέχετα, c.f. *loghos ‘encampment’ > Alb. lag, Blg. log, Grk λόχος (Pok.:658-659).

    Similarly, there are many examples to back up the claim that palatalization was blocked before *o in Indo-Iranian, e.g.: *-ghe ~ *-gho ~ *-ghi (enclitic particle) > Skt. ha, gha, hí, Avs. zī, Lth. -gu, OCS -go, Grk. -χί (Pok.:418); *H₃moigho- ‘mist’ > Skt. meghá, Avs. maēγa-, Lth. miẽgas, Russ. migátʹ, c.f. *H₃meigh- ‘urinate’ > Skt. mḗhati, Avs. maēzaiti, Arm. mizem, Grk. ὀμείχειν, Lth. mę̃žù, Serbo-Croat mìžâm (Pok.:712-713); *ker- ~ *kor- ‘dark’ > Skt. karaṭa-, Arm. saṙn, Alb. thjer-më, Lth. šer̃kšnas, OCS srěnъ, Grk. κόρυζα; (Pok.:573-574); *leukos ‘bright’ > Skt. lōká-, Arm. lois, Lth. laũkas, Grk. λευκός, c.f. *luk- ‘shine’ > Skt. rúśant, Arm. lusanunkʿ, OCS vъs-lysъ, Old High German luhs (Pok.:687-690). Thus, there is evidence that palatalization was blocked before *o in all the satem languages except Armenian.

    It is well known that palatalization was blocked before *s in Indic, e.g.: *H₂nekseti ‘reach’ > Skt. nákṣati, c.f. *H₂nek- ‘reach’ > Skt. náśati, Avs. -nasaiti, Lth. nešù, OCS nesǫ, Grk. δι-ηνεκής (Pok.:316-318). This rule also operated in reflexes of ‘thorn clusters’, e.g.: *dhghem- ‘earth’ > Skt. kṣam-, Avs. zā̊, Alb. dhe, Lth. žẽmė, OCS zemlja, Grk. χθών (Pok.:414-416). Note that *-ks- yields *-š- in Iranian, e.g.: *deks- ‘take’ > Skt. dákṣiṇa-, Avs. dašina-, Alb. djathtë, Lth. dẽšinas, OCS desnъ, Grk. δεξιτερός (Pok.:189-191); *H₂eks ‘axe’ > Skt. ákṣ̌aḥ, Lth. ašìs, OCS osъ Grk. ἅξων (Pok.:4-6); *tetk- ‘make’ > Skt. takṣati, Avs. tašaiti, Ltv. tešu, OCS tesati, Grk. τέκτων. The blocking in Indic did not operate word-finally, e.g.: *sueks ‘six’ > Skt. ṣáṭ, Avs. xšvaš, Arm. vec̣, Alb. gjashtë, Lth. šešì, OCS šestь, Grk. ἕξ (Pok.:1044).

    Blocking of palatalization before resonants and *u plus a back vowel in Balto-Slavic and Albanian was discussed by Kortlandt (1978, 2008) and is well attested, e.g.: *ghelH- ~ *gholH- ~ *ghloH- ‘shine’ > Skt. hári-, Avs. zari-, Alb. dhelpërë, Lth. želiù, glodùs, OCS zelenъ, gladъkъ, Grk. χόλος (Pok.:429-434); *H₂egnos ‘agile’ > Lth. agnùs (Otkupščikov 1967), c.f. *H₂eg- > Skt. ájati, Avs. azaiti, Arm. acem Grk. ἄγω (Pok.:4-6); *H₂ekmen ~ *H₂ekmon ‘stone’ > Skt. aśman-, Avs. asman-, Lth. ãšmens, akmuõ, OCS kamy, Grk. ἄκμων (Pok.:18-22); *kleu- ~ *klou- ~ *klu- ‘hear’ > Skt. śrudhí, Avs. surunaoiti, Alb. quaj, Lth. šlovė̃, klausaũ, OCS slovo, Grk. κλέω (Pok.:605-607, Orrel 1998); *kuon- ~ *kun- ‘dog’ > Skt. śvā́, Avs. spā, Arm. šun, Lth. šuõ (gen. šuñs), Sudovian kuo, Grk. κύων (Pok.:632-633, Zinkevičius 1985).

    Finally, note that there are several examples to back up the claim that palatalization was blocked before *st in Baltic, e.g.: *H₂eksti- ‘sharp’ > Lth. akstìs, OCS ostъnъ, Welsh eithin, c.f. *H₂ek- ‘sharp’, above; *H₂emghst- ‘tight’ > Lth. añkštas, c.f. *H₂emgh- ‘narrow’, above.

  • Happy International Women’s Day!

    I am a bit late with this as International Women’s Day was actually last Sunday. Regardless, I felt it important to post something on the historical significance of International Women’s Day and why we should celebrate it. The origins of International Women’s Day (IWD) can be traced back to the late 19th century. At that time political representation had yet to extend to women, so women were engaged in their own fight for suffrage both in Britain and elsewhere and in this context the idea of an international women’s organisation was born. In the early 20th century working class and socialist movements began sweeping across Europe and America. In February 1909 a ‘National Woman’s Day’ was first proposed by Theresa Malkiel, American labour activist.

    This day officially became IWD in 1911 and in 1913 IWD was recognized in Russia for the first time. Women played a central role in the period leading up to the Russian Revolution. In 1917, female textile workers in St Petersburg went on strike demanding an end to war, Tsarism, and the shortage of food. The date when the strike commenced in the Gregorian calendar fell on the 8 March which has since been adopted as IWD worldwide. The liberation of women formed a key component of the Bolshevik’s program and the revolution paved the way for subsequent gains by many women in the capitalist world. The UN officially adopted the day in 1977, with many countries now celebrating it as a public holiday.

    Whilst the “historical defeat of the female sex”, as Engels phrased it, resulted from changes to society through the Neolithic Revolution, the oppression of women continues to this day. If anything it is getting worse. A recent global survey garnering 23,000 responses across 26 countries indicated that as many as 31% of Gen Z men – that is, men born roughly between 1997 and 2012  – believe that ‘a wife should always obey her husband’, compared to just 13% of those aged 60 or over. Interestingly, 18% of Gen Z women also agreed. According to a recent report from the United Nations, women globally hold 64% of the legal rights of men, exposing them to discrimination, violence, and exclusion at every stage of their lives.

    That is not to say that women have not continued the fight to overcome their struggles. The ‘second wave’ women’s movement of the 1960s and 70s developed alongside a radicalisation of society that saw of anti-war protests, the struggle for civil rights, student movements, the fight for gay rights, working class labour movements, and anti-colonial revolutions. The 2007-8 global recession and its aftermath led to protests in 2011 against victim blaming for violence against women and girls, and the #MeToo movement aimed to empower victims of sexual assault through a phrase demonstrating empathy, solidarity, and strength in numbers. But lack of a unified strategy has resulted in the fragmentation of the women’s movement and stifled its broader aim to fundamentally transform society.

    The theme for this year’s IWD  is ‘giving support’, which has many interpretations. It can mean direct action, such that taken by women across Europe in 1914, who held rallies to campaign for the end of war and express solidarity with their sisters. It can mean pushing for legislative and administrative changes, for example by enhancing women’s roles within trade unions. It can mean setting up groups to address oppression of women directly, such as the Zhenotdel (women’s department) that was set up in Russia in 1919 to raise the consciousness of women and campaign to fully involve them in the building of a new society. Or it can mean women being a voice for their sisters, like Joeli Brearley, who launched ‘Pregnant Then Screwed’ in 2015 to give free advice and support for pregnant women in the workplace.

    With increased numerical strength in the workforce, working class women have more opportunity than ever to take action in their own right. It is clear that women cannot rely on female capitalist politicians, who might make some legislative changes in favour of women’s rights but ultimately will seek only to defend the interests of the capitalist class. Real and lasting change can only be made for women if the capitalist system as a whole is challenged – and this can only be achieved through revolutionary means. The struggle is not one of women against men, nor of women changing themselves, but women organising and uniting to end capitalism and bring forward socialism.  This is the real message behind International Women’s Day.

  • Can you get an ought from an is?

    The is–ought problem, first articulated by the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, concerns the question of whether we can make claims about what ought to be that are based solely on statements about what is. Hume himself thought not, arguing that at an ethical or judgemental conclusion cannot be inferred from purely descriptive factual statements. The same view was put forward by the 20th century English philosopher G.E. Moore using what he dubbed the ‘open question argument’. Moore’s argument may be summarized as follows: if X is objectively good, then the question “is it true that X is objectively good?” is meaningless; but the question “is X good?” is never meaningless, as it is an open question; therefore X cannot be objectively good.

    It is remarkable that such a shaky argument can hold any sway in philosophical circles. Each step in the chain of reasoning has obvious holes. First and foremost, if a statement Y is objectively true, it doesn’t follow that the question “is Y objectively true?” is meaningless. This objection is particularly relevant in situations when we don’t know whether Y is objectively true or not. Second, it is not hard to come up with statements X that are objectively true but where the question “is X good?” is meaningless. And third, even you ignore the first two problems, the argument as a whole is circular as it assumes that the question “is X good?” is open, which, according to Moore’s logic, is only true if X is not objectively good – the very thing we were meant to be demonstrating!

    So much for the open question argument. What about arguments in favour of the opposite position, i.e. the claim that you can get an is from an ought? The idea that moral properties are reducible to natural properties that can be studied through empirical or scientific means is known as ‘ethical naturalism’. This school of thought rejects the so-called fact–value distinction and argues that inquiry into the natural world can increase our moral knowledge in just the same way it increases our scientific knowledge. Proponents of ethical naturalism argue that humanity needs to invest in a science of morality which grounds morality and ethics in rational, empirical or scientific consideration of the natural world.

    A science of morality begins with two basic premises: (1) some people have lives which are objectively better than the lives of other people; and (2) these differences can be traced back to the material conditions in which people find themselves. I don’t think many people would disagree with premise (1). Idealists would object to premise (2) and argue instead that differences in well-being are traceable to ideas rather than material conditions. In a previous blog post I argued that materialist worldview is superior to the idealist worldview because the former enables us to fully explain the world around us whereas the latter does not. Materialism is the philosophical backbone of the scientific method, which has been extraordinarily successful in enabling us humans to understand how the universe works.

    In order for us to say that one outcome is objectively better than another outcome, we need to define a function v() with the property that v(x) > v(y) if and only if outcome x is objectively better than outcome y. The function v() might be referred to as a value function as it assigns values to different outcomes. Thus, the study of morality is closely linked to the study of value. How might we go about defining such a function? One way is to consider the likelihood of an outcome occurring. As a general rule, rare outcomes are considered to be more valuable than common outcomes. We can state this mathematically as v(x) > v(y) if and only p(x) < p(y), where p() is a function which assigns probabilistic to outcomes.

    Another way of saying this is that there is a decreasing function i() with the properly that v(x) = i[p(x)] for each outcome x. What other properties should the function i() have? If x and y are independent outcomes – that is, the occurrence of x does not affect the probability of occurrence of y, and vice-versa – then the probability if both outcomes occurring, z, is given by: p(z) = p(x)p(y). For such outcomes it makes sense to say that the value of both outcomes occurring is equal to sum of the values of each outcome occurring; that is, v(z) = v(x)+v(y), which implies that i[p(z)] = i[p(x)p(y)] = i[p(x)]+i[p(y)]. One decreasing function which satisfies this criterion is -log(). Thus, we can set v(x) = i[p(x)] = -log[p(x)] for any outcome x.

    Suppose now we have a random variable X which can take different outcomes x. We can analogously define the value of this random variable using the equation v(X) = ∑p(x)i[p(x)] = -∑ p(x)log[p(x)]. Those with a background in mathematics or physics might recognize this as the formula for entropy. The idea that value is equivalent to entropy is appropriately referred to as the ‘entropy theory of value’. But what does this theory actually tell us?! Let’s consider a simple example: wealth distribution. Suppose there are two people with relative wealth levels p and q, where p+q = 1. If X is a random variable which takes the value x with probably p and the value y with probability q, then v(X) = -plog(p)-qlog(q). Using the fact that p+q = 1, we have v(X) = -plog(p)-(1-p)log(1-p).

    It can be shown that this value is maximized when p = ½ and minimized when p = 0 or 1. In other words, the highest value is obtained when wealth is equally distributed between the two people and the lowest value when wealth is most unequally distributed. This result can easily be generalized to a population of any size and provides an objective justification for the intuitive idea that we should aim to minimize inequality. So perhaps you can get an ought from an is after all.

  • Is Bigfoot real?

    Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a large, hairy creature said to inhabit forests in North America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Proponents for the existence of Bigfoot have offered various forms of evidence to support the creature’s existence, including anecdotal claims of sightings, as well as photographs, video and audio recordings, and casts of large footprints. Bigfoot is usually described as a muscular, bipedal human or ape-like creature covered in black, dark brown, or dark reddish hair. Common descriptions include broad shoulders, no visible neck, and long arms. The enormous footprints for which the creature is named are claimed to be up to 24 inches long and 8 inches wide.

    I have always been sceptical about the existence of these creatures. Recently, though, I have been wondering whether my scepticism was warranted. In this blog post I will go through some of the evidence put forward in support of Bigfoot’s existence, starting with the claims of sightings. According to the website Live Science, there have been over 10,000 reported Bigfoot sightings in the continental United States. Of course many, perhaps even most, of these sightings will be misidentifications. But even if 90% of them were misidentifications, that would still leave over 1,000 sightings unaccounted for. That figure seems too large to me to simply be ignored and suggests there is something out there that cannot be readily explained by mainstream science.

    We don’t have to take people’s word for it though, as there are many videos that purport to show these creatures in the wild. The most famous of these is the so-called Patterson-Gimlin film, a 1967 short motion picture which depicts an unidentified animal that the filmmakers claimed was a Bigfoot. Like most people my initial reaction on seeing this film was that the subject was a man in a gorilla suit. The more I watch it, however, the less convinced I am of this. In particular, the creature displays anatomical features that go way beyond what would be expected if the film was a hoax. For example, the creature’s foot seems to have something called a ‘mid-tarsal break’, a feature that is not present in humans but is present in non-human primates.

    We also have audio evidence. Bigfoot vocalizations such as howls, screams, moans, grunts, and whistles have been reported and recorded. Perhaps the most famous of these are the so-called Sierra Sounds, audio recordings from the early 1970s apparently capturing Bigfoot vocalizations in the Sierra Nevada mountains which are claimed to be a form of language. Retired U.S. Navy cryptographic linguist Scott Nelson analyzed the recordings and concluded, “It is definitely a language, it is definitely not human in origin, and it could not have been faked.” No formal studies have been conducted on the Sierra Sounds so we cannot say anything definitive about them. But having listened to these recordings myself, I find it hard to disagree with Nelson’s conclusion.

    Then there are the footprints, after which Bigfoot takes its name. Hundreds of alleged Bigfoot footprints have been reported and cast. Many of these are probably fakes; but just as with the Patterson-Gimlin film, some show anatomical features that go way beyond what would be expected from a hoax. For example, may of these prints show evidence of ‘dermal ridges’: patterned, raised corrugations of the skin found on the hands and feet of primates and other animals, more commonly referred to as fingerprints. It does not seem conceivable that a hoaxer would be able to fake these, or even that they would think to fake them. Then there is the fact that these prints are remarkably uniform in size and shape. If these footprints are the result of a hoax, it must be a very well-organised one.

    Many indigenous cultures across the North American continent tell tales of mysterious hair-covered creatures living in forests. According to anthropologist David Daegling, these legends existed long before contemporary reports of the creature described as Bigfoot. It’s also notable how consistent these stories are, even between cultures that historically would have had little to no contact with each other. We with our western chauvinism tend to dismiss such stories as nothing more than folklore, arrogantly assuming that if something cannot be explained by known science then it can’t possibly be true. Perhaps we ought to pay more attention to the people who were living North America for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. They might actually be trying to tell us something.

  • Von Neumann’s economic model

    In 1937 the Hungarian mathematician and physicist Jon von Neumann published a paper entitled A Model of General Economic Equilibrium, in which he set out an abstract mathematical model of an economy. Von Neumann’s model is still used widely today, particularly by Marxist economists. In this blog post I will provide a brief summary. The model is based on two premises: (1) commodities are produced not only from ‘natural factors of production’ also from each other; and (2) there may be a different number of technically possible processes of production than types of commodities. The second premise is captured by assuming that there are m types of commodities which can be produced by n processes, where in general m ≠ n.

    In each process j, quantities aij ≥ 0 are used up and quantities bij ≥ 0 are produced of commodity type i; let A = (aij) and B = (bij). In general, each commodity i will have an associated price pi, and each process j will be used with a certain ‘intensity’ qj. Given a 1xm price vector p = (pi), the vector pA represents the total cost of operating the different processes and the vector pB represents the total revenue obtained from the different processes. Similarly, given an nx1 intensity vector q = (qj), the vector Aq represents the total commodities of different types used up and the vector Bq represents the total commodities of different types produced. Von Neumann was concerned with the situation where the whole economy expands without change of structure, i.e. where the ratios between the intensities remains constant.

    It is assumed that the matrices A and B are known. The unknowns are: the prices p = (pi) ≥ 0 of the different commodity types; an ‘interest factor’ c = 1+r ≥ 0, where r is the interest rate or profit rate; the intensities q = (qj) ≥ 0 of the different processes; and a ‘coefficient of expansion’ d = 1+g  ≥ 0, where g is the growth rate for the economy. These are related by the vector inequalities pB ≤ cpA and Bq ≥ dAq, and also by the equations p(B-cA)q = 0 and p(B-dA)q = 0. The first inequality says that it is impossible to produce more revenue at the next time step (pB) than what was spent at the previous time step multiplied by the interest factor (cpA). The second inequality says that it is impossible for the economy to consume more at the next time step (dAq) than was produced at the previous time step (Bq).

    The equation p(B-cA)q = 0 says that if a process is unprofitable, it won’t be used and its intensity will therefore be zero. To see this, note that p(B-cA)q ≤ 0 for any intensity vector q. If p(B-cA)q < 0 then the economy will produce profits at a rate lower than the average rate for the economy, so by assumption we must have q = 0, which implies that p(B-cA)q = 0, a contradiction. Similarly, the equation p(B-dA)q = 0 says that if the economy consumes less of a commodity than was produced at the previous time step, the commodity becomes a free good and its price drops to zero. To see this, note that p(B-dA)q ≤ 0 for any price vector p. If p(B-dA)q < 0 then the economy consumes less than was produced at the previous time step, so by assumption we must have p = 0, which implies that p(B-dA)q = 0, a contradiction.

    The inequalities pB ≤ cpA and Bq ≥ dAq can be restated as c = maxj{(pB)j/(pA)j} and d = mini{(Bq)i/(Aq)i}, which shows that p uniquely determines c and q uniquely determines d. Von Neumann demonstrated that if there exist p and q satisfying the above equalities and equations, then c and d are both equal to pBq/pAq. In order to demonstrate that such solutions exist, von Neumann in addition assumed that A+B > 0, which implies that every process requires as an input or produces as an output some positive amount of every commodity. In a footnote to his paper, von Neumann also pointed out a link between his model and the theory of two-player zero-sum games, a theory that von Neumann himself was instrumental in developing. Let us now explore this link in a bit more detail.

    Fix a number e > 0 and let C = B-eA. We can interpret C as a payoff matrix for zero-sum game between a minimizing player, who chooses a price vector p ≥ 0, and a maximizing player, who chooses an intensity vector q ≥ 0. The game determined by the matrix C is said to have a solution (p*,q*,v*) if (p*C)j ≤ v* for each j and (Cq*)i ≥ v* for each i; the number v* is then referred to as the value of the game. Von Neumann’s famous 1928 minimax theorem states that v* = min max pCq = max min pCq, where the minimum is taken over the price vector p and the maximum is taken over the intensity vector q. Moreover, if (p,q,c,d) is a solution to the problem defined above, then c = d, and if we set e = c = d then v* = 0, which implies that the game is fair.

    In a Marxist interpretation, the ‘minimizing player’ may be identified with the working class and the ‘maximizing player’ with the ruling class. Of course, Marxists would argue that the game of capitalism is anything but fair, and is instead rigged in favour of the ruling class. This suggests that von Neumann’s model needs to be modified in order to fully capture the class relations of capitalism. I will leave this modification for a future blog post.

  • A two-velar theory for PIE

    In a series of recent blog posts I have argued, based on data compiled by Lars Steensland in his 1973 PhD thesis, that Proto-Indo-European – henceforth PIE – had two rather than three types of velar consonant: plain velars and labiovelars. In general, plain velars were palatalized and labiovelars delabialized in the satem languages, whereas both types of velar remained intact in the centum languges. However, under certain phonological conditions, plain velars remained intact in the satem languages and labiovelars were delabialized in the centum languages. In my view, this is what has led many scholars to incorrectly conclude that there must have been three types of velar in PIE. In this blog post I will summarize some of these phonological conditions.

    Palatalization was blocked after *s, including mobile *s, in all the satem languages, e.g.: *(s)kel- ‘cut’ > Sanskrit kalā́, Armenian čelkʿem, Albanian halë, Lthuanian skeliù, Old Church Slavonic skala, Greek σκάλλω; *(s)ker- ‘cut’ > Skt. apa-skara-, Avs. čarəman-, Arm. kʿorem, Alb. hirrë, Lth. skiriù, OCS krъnъ, Grk. κείρω. Similarly, palatalization was blocked after non-syllabic *n in all the satem languages, e.g.: *H₂enk- ‘bend’ > Skt. añcati, Avs. anku-, Arm. ankiwn, Lth. anka, OCS  jęčьmy, Grk. ἀγκών (c.f. *H₂ek- ‘sharp’ > Skt. aśáni-, Avs. asəŋga-, Arm. aseɫn, Alb. athëtë, Lth. ašnìs, OCS osla, Grk. ἀκή). In Indic, palatalization was also blocked before *s, e.g.: dhghem- ‘earth’ > Skt. kṣam-, Avs. zā̊, Alb. dhe, Lth. žẽmė, OCS zemlja, Grk. χθών.

    Palatalization was blocked before *r in all the satem languages, e.g.: *gerH₂- ~ *grH₂- ‘grow’ > Skt. járate, Avs. azarəšant-, Arm. cer, Alb. grurë, Lth. žìrnis, OCS zьrěti, Grk. ἐγείρω; *kerd- ~ *krd- ‘heart’ > Arm. sirt, Alb. kërth, Lth. širdìs, OCS srъdьce, Grk. καρδίᾱ; *kerH₂- ~ *korH₂- ~ *krH₂- ‘crow’ > Skt. śāri-, krkara-, Arm. sareak, karkač̣, Lth. šárka, kirkiù, OCS soraka, krъknǫti, Grk. κέρκαξ. In Balto-Slavic and Albanian, palatalization was also blocked before (PIE) *o, e.g.: bherghos ‘mountain’ > Arm. berj, OCS brěgъ, Gothic baurgs (c.f. *bhergh- ~ *bhrgh- ‘high’ > Skt. barháyati, Avs. bərəzant-); *kerH₂- ~ *korH₂- ~ *krH₂- ‘horn’ > Skt. śíras-, Avs. sarah-, Arm. sar, Alb. ka, Lth. šìršė, kárvė, OCS sъrъšenь, Russian koróva, Grk. κάρ.

    The same blocking of palatalization before *o also took place in Indo-Iranian, e.g.: *H₃moigho- ‘mist’ > Skt. meghá, Avs. maēγa-, Lth. miẽgas, Russ. migátʹ (c.f. *H₃meigh- ‘urinate’ > Skt. mḗhati, Avs. maēzaiti, Arm. mizem, Grk. ὀμείχειν, Lth. mę̃žù, Serbo-Croat mìžâm); *-ghe ~ *-gho ~ *-ghi (enclitic particle) > Skt. ha, gha, hí, Avs. zī, Lth. -gu, OCS -go, Grk. -χί; *ker- ~ *kor- ‘dark’ > Skt. karaṭa-, Arm. saṙn, Alb. thjer-më, Lth. šer̃kšnas, OCS srěnъ, Grk. κόρυζα; *leukos ‘bright’ > Skt. lōká-, Arm. lois, Lth. laũkas, Grk. λευκός (c.f. *luk- ‘shine’ > Skt. rúśant, Arm. lusanunkʿ, OCS vъs-lysъ, Old High German luhs). Thus, palatalization of plain velars was blocked before *o in all the satem languages apart from Armenian. As far as I am aware, this phonological rule has not been specified before.

    In Balto-Slavic, palatalization was blocked before resonants and *u when followed by a back vowel, and also before syllabic *l, e.g.: *ghelH₃- ~ *ghlH₃- ‘green’ > Lth. žélti, gel̃tas, OCS zelenъ, žlъtъ, Grk. χλωρός; *ghleH₁- ~ *ghloH₁- ‘shine’ > Lth. žlėjà, glodùs, OCS gladъkъ, OHG gluoen; *H₂ekmen ~ *H₂ekmon ‘stone’ > Skt. aśman-, Avs. asman-, Lth. ãšmens, akmuõ, OCS kamy, Grk. ἄκμων; *kleu- ~ *klou- ~ *klu- ‘hear’ > Skt. śrudhí, Avs. surunaoiti, Lth. šlovė̃, klausaũ, OCS slovo, Grk. κλέω; *kuon- ~ *kun- ‘dog’ > Skt. śvā́, Avs. spā, Arm. šun, Lth. šuõ (gen. šuñs), Sudovian kuo, Grk. κύων. The same blocking of palatalization before resonants took place in Albanian e.g.: *H₃mighleH₂ ‘mist’ > Lth. miglà, OCS mĭgla, Alb. mjegull, Grk. ὀμίχλη (c.f. *H₃meigh- ‘urinate’, above); *gonu- ~ *gnu- ‘knee’ > Skt. jā́nu, Arm. cunr, Alb. gju, Grk. γόνυ.

    Labiovelars were delabialized next to *u in all the centum languages, e.g.: *gʷou- ~ *gʷu- ‘cattle’ > Skt. gáuḥ, Grk. βοῦς, Lat. bōs, Old Norse kýr, Welsh bu; *gʷoukʷolH₁os ‘cowherd’ > Grk. boukólos, Wel. bugail (c.f. *kʷelH₁- ‘turn’ Skt. cárati, Grk. πέλω); *gʷu- ‘bend’ > Skt. gudám, Grk. γύπη, Lat. guttur, OHG chubisi, MIr. gūaire, Hit. kuttar; *H₁lengʷhus ‘lightweight’ > Skt. laghú-, Grk. ἐλαχύς (c.f. *H₁lengʷhros ‘lighweight’ > Grk. ἐλαφρός); *H₂uekʷ- *H₂ukʷ- ‘speak’ > Skt. vákti, Grk. ἔπος, Hit. ḫuek-, ḫuk-; *H₃ekʷ- ‘see’ > Skt. ákṣi, Grk. ὄψομαι, Lat. oculus, Got. augō, Wel. enep; *kʷekʷlos ‘wheel’ > Skt. cakrá-, Grk. κύκλος, ON hvēl; *kʷo- ‘what’ > Skt. ká, Grk. ποῦ, Lat. cum, Got. hwas; *kʷub- ‘bend’ > Skt. kubra-, Grk. κύβος, Lat. cubitum, Got. hups.

    In Greek, the sequences *KʷoR and *RoKʷ became *KʷuR and *RuKʷ by a process named Cowgill’s law after the American linguist Warren Cowgill, and the labiovelar was then delabialized by the adjacent *u, e.g.: *gʷenH₂- ~ *gʷonH₂- ~ *gʷnH₂- ‘woman’ > Skt. gnā, Grk. γυνή, Got. qino, OIr. ben; *negʷ- ~ *nogʷ- ‘naked’ > Skt. nagná-, Grk. γυμνός, Got. naqaþs, Hit. nekumanza. Similarly, in Germanic, the sequence *KʷRC became *KʷuRC, and the labiovelar was then delabialized by the following *u, e.g.: *gʷhent- ~ *gʷhnt- ‘hit’ > Skt. hánti, ON gunnr, Hit. kuenzi. Note that in Armenian, labiovelars merged with plain velars after *u prior to the palatalization of plain velars, e.g.: *dhugʷH₂ter ‘daughter’ > Skt. duhitár-, Avs. dugədar-, Arm. dustr, Lth. duktė̃, OCS dъšti, Grk. θυγάτηρ, Got. daúhtar.

    In Latin and Germanic, labiovelars were delabialized before (PIE) *o, e.g.: *kʷelH₁-, *kʷolH₁- ‘turn’ > Skt. cárati, Grk. πέλω, Lat. colō, Got. hals; *kʷoti- ‘how many’ > Skt. káti, Grk. πόσος, Lat. cottīdiē; *pekʷ-, *pokʷ- ‘cook’ > Skt. pácati, Grk. πέπων, Lat. coquō (< *kʷokʷ-), Wel. pobi. Labiovelars were also delabialized before resonants and before non-syllabic *i in these languages, e.g.: *gʷerH₂- ~ *gʷrH₂- ‘throat’ > Skt. giráti, Grk. βάραθρον, Lat. gurguliō, OHG querdar, ON kragi, Wel. breuant; *gʷrH₂u- ‘heavy’ > Skt. gurúḥ, Grk. βαρύς, Latin gravis, Got. kaurus, Wel. bryw; *H₃nogʷhl- ‘nail’ > Skt. aṅghri, ON nagl (cf. *H₃nogʷh- ~ *H₃ngʷh-  ‘nail’  > Skt. nakhá, Grk. ὄνυξ, Lat. unguis, Wel. ewin); *loikʷie- ‘lend’ > Skt. recáyati, ON leigja (c.f. *leikʷ- ‘leave’ > Lth. liekù, Grk. leípō, Lat. līquī, Gor. leihwan).

    Finally, note that in all the western languages – Italic, Germanic, and Celtic – labiovelars were delabialized before obstruents, e.g.: *H₁lengʷhtos ‘lightweight’ > Alb. lehtë, Got. leihts (c.f. *H₁lengʷhros ‘lighweight’ > Grk. ἐλαφρός); *likʷtos ‘left behind’ > Lat. relictus (c.f. *leikʷ- ‘leave’, above); *nekʷt- ~ *nokʷt- ‘night’ > Skt. nák, Grk. νύξ, Lat. nox, Got. nahts, Wel. noeth, Hit. nekuz; *pekʷtos ‘cooked’ > Grk. peptós, Lat. coctus, Wel. poeth. There are more phonological conditions that can be specified but I will leave these to a future blog post.

  • Only socialism can defeat austerity

    This week I attended a ‘people’s budget’ meeting held by Surrey Trades Council which featured talks by representatives from the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition (TUSC), Your Party, the Green Party of England & Wales, and the UK Labour Party. The TUSC representative spoke first and began by pointing out that continued low economic growth will almost certainly be used by the government as an excuse to squeeze funding for public services even further. They then said that they although they are encouraged to see left-leaning trends in the Green Party, they are also wary that the Greens are still not committed to reversing cuts to council funding imposed by previous Conservative governments, as well as the current Labour government.

    The Your Party representative spoke next and made clear that Your Party will not be standing candidates in the upcoming local elections in Surrey but will instead be looking to support independent candidates. They went on to say that they would like to see the Greens supporting Your Party in future, in the same way that members of Your Party supported the Greens in the recent Gorton & Denton by-election. A common theme that ran throughout their talk was the need for all of us on the left to work together as a united front to combat the stress being put on our public services by repeated budget cuts. They ended their contribution by voicing their support for a budget that puts people’s needs first – in other words, a people’s budget.

    Next up was the Green Party representative, already a councillor in Surrey. They agreed with the Your Party representative on the need to form left-wing coalitions, although their focus seemed to be more on stopping Reform rather than properly funding public services. Interestingly, they said that they used to be a member of the Labour party and that they were a Labour councillor, but they were kicked out during the purge of the left that occurred when Starmer took charge of the party. Their proposal for arresting the decline in public services was to bring them back into ownership by the local community; for example, by providing services such as special educational need provision within Surrey rather than contracting them out.

    The final speaker was the Labour Party representative, who began by affirming their left-wing credentials, telling us about how they had grown up in one of the most deprived areas of the UK and how they were a lifelong trade unionist. They lamented the loss of Sure Start, a government-funded initiative primarily targeting disadvantaged areas designed to provide support services for parents and children under four years old (or five in some areas). This policy was introduced by Labour in 1998 but was subsequently cut back in 2011 as part of the government’s austerity program. They finished by pointing out their priorities for the Surrey: social housing, public transport, special educational needs, and youth services.

    The floor was then opened to allow contributions from the audience. The first of these was from a TUSC member, who highlighted  the failure of the Labour party to do anything about the cuts to public services that were imposed by successive Conservative governments. They said that young people are fearful of the future, and face rising accommodation costs as well as rising costs of basic goods and services. These rising costs were exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and are likely to be exacerbated further by the recent outbreak of war in the Middle East. Both of these conflicts are driven by imperialist interests. They went on to argue that Your Party should be standing candidates now to counteract these imperialist forces and that in not doing so they are squandering a historic opportunity.

    The next contribution was from another TUSC member, who spoke about the difference between schools funded by the local authority and academies, which are essentially privatized schools. The Labour Party representative responded that in their view we shouldn’t have academies at all, and it is appalling that schools are being treated like businesses. As a general rule, they said, schools should never be managed by private companies. In the same vein, they argued that we should also get rid of private schools and that all children should be given equal access to opportunities. A two-tier education system gives an unfair advantage to those children who go to private schools and erodes hope for children who don’t.

    This last point was made in response to a pertinent question from another audience member to all the panel: what would you do to bring back hope to young people? The Green Party representative said they would aim to ‘make hope normal again’, by bringing back the politics of care and compassion into communities. The Your Party representative said that young people should be given a seat at the table and asked what changes they would like to see. The TUSC representative rightly pointed out that what gets most people into politics is seeing what it can achieve. To bring back hope to young people we need to take a bold stance and be clear that we can defeat austerity and provide them with a brighter future. The TUSC is the only political organization in the UK that is currently doing that.

  • Should we all join the Green Party?

    The Green Party of England and Wales has just pulled off a stunning by-election victory in the Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton. The Greens’ Hannah Spencer becomes the new MP, with Reform in second place and Labour pushed into third. Billed by the press as a three-horse race, in the end the result wasn’t even close: the Greens secured 41% of the vote, way ahead of Reform (29%) and Labour (25%). This a remarkable result for several reasons. The Greens had never won more than 10% of the vote in a parliamentary by-election before. Labour had not lost an election in the Gorton and Denton constituency since 1931. Meanwhile, the Conservatives lost their deposit with just 2% of the vote, their worst ever by-election result.

    It is only the second time that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have been one of the top two parties in a by-election contest (the first time was the Rochdale by-election in 2024). With the two parties languishing  at 20% or less in the polls, the Conservative-Labour duopoly that has dominated post-war British politics looks to be over. The Conservatives have been unable to fend off the challenge from Reform, and now Labour’s traditional position as the main party on left of British politics seems to have been lost to the Greens. Keir Starmer’s tenure as prime minister will surely soon be over too. I suspect they are only keeping him on for now so that they can make him the fall guy for Labour’s local election results in May, which will almost certainly be catastrophic.

    This result once again raises a question that many of us on the left have been grappling with recently: should we throw in our lot with the Green Party? Many on the left have done just that already. And honestly, I don’t blame them. Zack Polanski’s leadership has transformed the Greens’ fortunes and turned them into a genuine electoral force. It should of course be pointed out that he has been given a huge helping hand in this by Starmer’s disastrous leadership of the Labour party. Still, Polanski and the Greens deserve a lot of credit. Compare and contrast with Your Party, the UK’s nascent socialist party, which has taken months to get off the ground and been mired with endless bickering and infighting.

    However, there is good reason for us socialists to be circumspect about the Greens. They are a reformist party that is wedded to the existing capitalist system. This creates a contradiction as they supposedly stand on an environmentalist platform, but capitalism is fundamentally inimical to environmentalism. It is clear that the Green Party will not bring about a revolution and as such does not post any real threat to the ruling class. We can see this borne out in the way that Polanski has been given a relatively easy ride by the media (although that might change following this by-election result). Still, you might counter, does this really matter? After all, most socialists supported Labour under Jeremy Corbyn even though it was then also a reformist party.

    The reason it matters, I think, is that there is a danger that the Greens absorb the huge latent demand there is for a genuine left-wing party then don’t do anything with it. We have already seen a glimpse of this with Green councillors in Sheffield refusing to back a no-cuts budget (see my recent blog post on this for more details). You get the impression that the Greens are more concerned with respectability than they are with bringing about genuine transformative change. This is obviously a problem as transformative change is what this country so desperately needs. Moreover, if people join the Greens expecting such change, and none comes about, this will inevitably lead to voter disillusionment and apathy.

    So if we shouldn’t throw our lot in with the Greens, who should we throw it in with? The obvious answer is Your Party. As already mentioned, this party has not got off to the most auspicious start. They have at least managed to elect a leader now, namely Jeremy Corbyn. I was slightly disappointed by this as I was hoping that Zara Sultana would get the job, but hopefully it will at least put an end to the infighting. It is also quite satisfying, not to mention quite funny, to see Corbyn back as leader of a political party after everything the establishment did to try and get rid of him. Given the obvious machinations that have been going on behind the scenes in Your Party, however, I am not optimistic about its prospects of becoming a major transformational force in British politics.

    The problem that the Green Party and Your Party have in common is that they are both being controlled from the top down. As such, they can never be truly democratic and can therefore never by truly socialist. Rather than backing one of these established parties, I think we should focus our efforts on building our own party which is controlled from the bottom up. One party that is being built in this way is the Socialist Party (formerly Militant), of which I am a member. It is only by building a party this way that we will create a truly democratic, socialist party that puts people before profits and can genuinely transform our society.

  • Why do tankies love Mao?

    Tankies – hardline Marxist-Leninists who defend the repressive actions of socialist states – often hold leaders such as Mao Zedong in high regard. This sets them apart from the rest of us, who usually think of these people as tyrannical despots. It is difficult to understand why anyone would venerate a leader who masterminded such disastrous initiatives as the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. The first of these was a failed economic policy that ran from 1958 to 1960 resulted in the worst man-made famine in history, killing an estimated 40 to 80 million people. The second was a violent purge of perceived capitalist elements that lasted from 1966 to Mao’s death in 1976 and destroyed cultural heritage, paralyzed education, and also killed many people.

    Mao created a cult of personality, suppressed free thought, and eliminated political opposition. Anyone who denies any of this is guilty of ignoring basic historical facts. Why, then, do some on the left seem to idolize him? A number of reasons may be put forward to explain this rather puzzling phenomenon. The first is that according to tankie ideology, opposing US imperialism is the primary goal of the communist movement. Because Mao led a successful revolution and established a strong, anti-Western power in China, he is seen by some as a champion of promoting unity among developing nations and a key figure in the fight against Western capitalism. This is the logic of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’.

    Another reason is that tankies often subscribe to the concept of ‘siege socialism’, which argues that for a socialist state to survive it must ruthlessly eliminate internal and external threats. Mao is viewed as a leader who prioritized the survival of the socialist state over all else, which in their view justifies his authoritarian measures. A third reason is that Maoism is considered an advanced form of Marxism-Leninism that applies particularly to revolutions in developing nations. Many, including those belonging to liberation movements like the Black Panthers, were influenced by Mao’s writings on strategy and revolution. A fourth reason is that tankies view criticisms of Mao as Western propaganda designed to delegitimize socialist history.

    None of these arguments stand up to scrutiny. The idea that we socialists should blindly support any leader or country that opposes US imperialism is obviously nonsense. Nazi Germany opposed US imperialism as it viewed the US as a dangerous rival for global power and land, but that doesn’t mean we should venerate Hitler! The idea that Maoism is an advanced form of Marxism-Leninism that applies particularly to developing nations seems equally nonsensical. Leninism was developed in early 20th century Russia, also a backwards agrarian country at that time. However it should be noted that Mao did write extensively and made significant contributions to socialist theory. It is difficult to imagine today’s politicians doing the same. ‘The thoughts of Keir Starmer’ would be a pretty short book.

    The ‘siege socialism’ argument has a bit more going for it, as any socialist state existing in a capitalist world will face many internal and external threats. You only have to look back to Chile in the 1970s to see what can happen when a socialist leader tries to make concessions to the capitalist class. (See my blog post on this for more details. Spoiler alert: it didn’t end well.) The argument that we view Mao through the lens of Western propaganda also has something going for it. It is often difficult to gauge how much of what we read and hear about socialist leaders like Mao is true and how much of it is capitalist propaganda. But it is undeniable that Mao was the architect of policies that killed millions of his own people and that this went way beyond simply eliminating capitalist threats.

    One argument in support of Mao that I think does carry some weight relates to the transformation that China underwent whilst he was leader. When Mao became leader of China in 1949 the country had just been ravaged by 20 years of war. First there was the civil war of 1927-1936, fought between the nationalists led by the Chiang Kai-Shek and the communists led by Mao. Then followed the second Sino-Japanese war of 1937-1945, fought between the China and imperial Japan, which in 1931 had invaded and conquered Northeast China (Manchuria). By time Mao declared the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 the nation was essentially a failed state. The literacy rate hovered around 30%, poverty was endemic, and life expectancy was just 35 years.

    Mao’s leadership fundamentally transformed China from a fractured, war-torn feudal society into a unified, industrializing nation. He ended decades of war and foreign imperialism, reuniting mainland China and establishing the People’s Republic of China as an independent, sovereign, and respected international power. Life expectancy increased from roughly 35 years in 1949 to 65 years by the time of Mao’s death in 1976 as basic healthcare was expanded to rural areas. The 1950 Marriage Law abolished traditional, oppressive practices such as foot-binding, arranged marriages, and concubinage, allowing women to enter the workforce, own property, and attain greater equality. And despite the setbacks of the Great Leap Forward, the era saw rapid, foundational industrial growth.

    If we were playing devil’s advocate we might ask whether any competent administration would have been able to achieve these advances given the dire state of China in 1949. But if we are to criticize Mao for the things he got wrong then as a point of logic we must also praise him for the things he got right. The rapid advances made by China under Mao demonstrate what can be achieved with a planned economy, even with a tyrannical dictator at the helm. Imagine what could be achieved by such an economy if it was run democratically by the people, for the people. Now that really would be a great leap forward.

  • Welcome to the new world order

    The rules-based international order is a post-WWII framework of laws, institutions (United Nations, World Trade Organisation, and International Monetary Fund), and norms supposedly designed to govern state behaviour, promote liberal democracy, and foster economic cooperation. In a recent speech, the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued that this decades-long arrangement is coming to an end. It is difficult to know whether we are witnessing the demise of something truly unique in human history or whether the whole thing was a sham. Most would probably argue that the truth is somewhere between these two extremes. Personally though, I am inclined to think the whole thing was a sham, as exceptions have always been made for certain countries, particularly the US and Israel.

    The sham has now well and truly unravelled. Israel’s genocide in Gaza has exposed the rules-based international order as a farce. The question now is: what comes next? President Trump’s recent behaviour provides a clue. We’ve all seen how Trump is has been acting like a medieval king, holding court and threatening to invade neighbouring countries. He also recently set up his ‘Board of Peace’ – an Orwellian title if ever I’ve heard one – and installed himself as lifelong chair. It is not clear at this stage whether this initiative will get any traction or whether Trump will forget about it as soon as he finds something interesting to watch on TV. But quite a few dictatorships have already signed up, as has Tony Blair (no surprise there!).

    Trump’s threats to invade neighbouring countries and his administration’s resurrection of the Monroe doctrine are quite telling. We seem to be witnessing a return to a pre-WWII geopolitical situation whereby countries aim to achieve dominance within their perceived ‘sphere of influence’ – which, in the case of the US, is the whole of the western hemisphere. You could take this as a sign that the US government on some level understands that it is no longer powerful enough to act as global enforcer. This might be viewed as a good thing for countries outside of the western hemisphere, who are now at lower risk of invasion. But it also creates a global power vacuum which will encourage regional powers elsewhere in the world to assert their dominance.

    One such regional power is Israel. The US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, recently created an international incident by suggesting that Israel would be justified in taking over a vast stretch of the Middle East on Biblical grounds. This was met with condemnation by many governments in the region and around the world. But his comments are entirely consistent with the ‘Greater Israel’ concept. Recently an image has been circulating of an Israeli soldier’s uniform featuring a hypothetical map of Greater Israel covering not just Palestine but all of Jordan and Lebanon, as well as parts of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the governments of these countries are now waking up to the realization that they might be next.

    For some time, Israel’s strategy has been to turn neighbouring countries into failed states that it will able to invade easily. If recent reports are to be believed, the US is about to launch an attack on Iran, despite the fact that Trump himself has always been against such intervention. Of course, the official reason will be that the US is attacking Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. But there is no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, and even if it was, there is no way these weapons could reach America. Nobody in their right mind really believes that Iran poses any real threat to the US. If the US does attack Iran it will be doing so entirely at Israel’s behest. More and more it seems that the Israeli tail is wagging the US dog.

    The cementing of Israel as the dominant power in the Middle East is sometimes referred to as ‘Pax Judaica’, Latin for ‘Jewish peace’. The term is also used to describe a hypothetical or emerging global order dominated by Israel, framed as the successor to ‘Pax Britannica’ – the era of relative stability between the Napoleonic Wars and the WWI – and ‘Pax Americana’ – the era of relative stability following WWI (coinciding with the rules-based international order). During both of these periods a hegemonic power adopted the role of ‘global policeman’; in the first case Britain, and in the second case the US. The suggestion behind the Pax Judaica concept is that Israel is aiming to usher in a new geopolitical period with itself as global hegemon.

    It is beyond doubt that Israel is aiming to establish dominant control in the Middle East. We have seen this with the Abraham Accords. These are ostensibly a series of normalization agreements establishing diplomatic, economic, and security ties between Israel and several Arab nations. In reality, they are elite-driven, top-down arrangements that lack popular support among citizens in the Arab signatory countries and sideline Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Israel’s blatant disregard for international law has precipitated the end of the so-called rules-based international order. We are now witnessing the beginning of a new order in which Israel will cement its place as regional hegemon and aim to become one of the dominant powers of the world.

  • Why work sucks

    A recent post on twitter caught my attention as I thought it perfectly summed up the absurdity of the working world. The post went like this: “Wake up early to go to a job you don’t care about. Work all day doing things that don’t matter to you, for people who wouldn’t care if you disappeared. Come home exhausted with barely enough energy to cook, clean, or even think. Try to squeeze in 30 minutes of ‘your time’ before passing out and doing it all again. Weekends? Spent recovering, running errands, or worrying about Monday. Vacations? Maybe two weeks a year if you’re lucky, and you’re still checking emails. And this is considered ‘normal’? I don’t want to ‘climb the ladder’. I don’t want to hustle for a promotion to get slightly better crumbs.”

    The post went on: “I want to wake up without anxiety. I want time to create, to move slowly, to breathe. Whatever this system is, it’s not living. It’s survival with a salary attached. Anyone else feel like the whole setup is one giant scam we’ve been tricked into calling life?” This post doesn’t just sum up the absurdity of the working world; it sums up the absurdity of capitalism. Our capitalist system is a giant scam that we are all forced to participate in against our will. When did any of us agree to this?! A critic might counter that we all have to do things we don’t want to do in order to keep society functioning effectively. But this ignores the fact that under capitalism, the vast majority of work people do is not designed to keep society running; it is designed to create surplus value for the ruling class.

    This is particularly true for people working in office jobs, who now comprise over half of the working population in the UK (including me). I am firmly of the view that we could get rid of 90% of office jobs overnight and society would continue to function just fine. In fact it would probably function more effectively. One peculiar thing about working an office job is that you often find yourself with nothing to do. Tell someone with a ‘real’ job this and they will act incredulous: “Surely you must have something to do? Otherwise they would just get rid of you!” But there are many reasons firms keep staff on even when they don’t actually have any work for them to do – the main one being that staff are kept on in case they are needed at some point in the future.

    From the point of view of a corporation, people are essentially no different to machines. In the same way you might buy a machine – say, a vacuum cleaner – and use it only when you need to, a firm will hire an employee and only use them when they need to. The rest of the time, the employee will be sat around twiddling their thumbs. That might sound nice – and it would be, if you were free to pursue your own interests during this down time. But instead you are still expected to be present and demonstrate that you are using your time ‘effectively’. Which practice means using your time in a way which will benefit the corporation, or more accurately, the corporation’s shareholders. These shareholders don’t care about your hobbies or interests; all they care about is that you make them money.

    One thing you soon learn about the working world is that the reward for hard work is not more money; it is more work! This makes sense in light of the way that employees are treated as machines: if you had two vacuum cleaners, and one was more effective at cleaning than the other, you would obviously tend to use the more effective one more than the less effective one. Company CEOs will often argue that employees shouldn’t just be motivated by money, that ‘hard work is it’s own reward’, and so on. But this is a bit rich given that the entire point of the enterprise they are overseeing is to make money for shareholders, and that their job is do this by extracting as much surplus value from their workers as they possibly can.

    Many companies will argue that they are ‘employee friendly’ and that they treat their employees well. And it’s certainly true that some companies treat their staff better than others. But all firms must operate within the constraints of the capitalist system, which necessarily involves making money through the exploitation of workers. Any firm that doesn’t do this will end up going bust. A company has no choice but to exploit its workers, no matter how nicely they might want to treat them. In this sense, firms are just as much a slave to the system as workers are. This absurdity will continue as long as we continue to live under capitalism. Our only way out is to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a system centred on people rather then profits.

  • Quantifying inequality in the UK

    It is generally agreed now by all but the most zealous capitalist apologists that conditions have not improved for ordinary people in the UK for some time. Recently I have been wondering if there is any data to back up this claim. And it turns out, there is. In this blog post I will go through some of the key statistics that highlight just how little things have improved for working people in this country in recent times, and how in many ways things have been getting worse. I will focus on the period since the 2008 financial crash, as this is when things started to become particularly hard for ordinary people – although it should be noted that the problems set in much earlier, arguably as far back as the 1970s. Let’s start by looking at wages.

    Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that the average wages adjusted for inflation grew steadily in the period 2000-2008 but then remained roughly constant after that. According to research by the Resolution Foundation, an independent think-tank focused on improving the living standards for those on low to middle incomes, fifteen years of wage stagnation has left British workers £11,000 worse off a year on average than they would have been had wage growth continued at its pre-2008 rate. This is backed up by data on the labour share of national income, which has remained at around 60% since 2008, and by data on income distribution, which shows that the income share of the bottom 10% has remained at around 20% since 2008, compared to around 35% for the top 10%.

    The standard economic measure of income inequality called the ‘Gini index’, named after the Italian economist Corrado Gini who devised it in 1912. This index measures income or wealth inequality within a population, ranging from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 or 100% (perfect inequality). According to data from the World Bank, the UK’s Gini index has remained roughly constant at around 35% since 2008, which again backs up the claim that conditions have not improved for ordinary people since then. In fairness, the UK’s Gini index is one of the lowest in the world; but it could be lower. Slovakia and Slovenia, for example, both currently have indices around 25% – and both are classed as ‘high income’ countries. The UK’s Gini index was also around 25% back in the 1970s.

    However it is in wealth rather than income that inequality shows up most clearly. According to a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an independent social change organisation, wealth inequality in the UK is high and rising, with the top 10% of households currently holding 57% of all wealth whilst the bottom 50% own less than 5%. Moreover, wealth inequality has increased significantly in recent years, with the wealth gap growing by 50% over an eight-year period ending around 2019. Net property wealth and private pension wealth are the main drivers of this disparity, with the former accounting for around 40% of total wealth and the latter accounting for around 35%. Individuals aged 65-74 generally have the most wealth, whilst younger, working-age people generally have very little.

    You might be wondering how we can square the fact that wealth inequality has increased so rapidly in recent years with the fact that income inequality has remained roughly the same during the same period. The explanation lies in the observation that the more wealthy you are, the less of your income you are obliged to spend in order to survive, and vice-versa. Workers generally spend all or almost all of their income on paying for essential goods: food, housing, clothing, and so in. We could even go so far as a defining a worker as someone who must spend all of their income in order to survive. In contrast, those at the top of the income distribution – those we might label as capitalists – only have to spend a fraction of their income on necessities, and are therefore able to accumulate the rest as wealth.

    Wealth inequality matters for many reasons. It drives poverty and precarity for people at the bottom of the wealth distribution. Not having access to wealth makes lives more insecure and makes it more likely that people will be pulled into poverty. According to a 2023 study, more than a quarter of adults at the start of 2020 said that they would not be able to manage on their savings for a month if their income stopped. Wealth inequality is racialized and gendered, and therefore entrenches existing societal prejudices. Men in the UK have on average around £100,000 more in total wealth than women, a gap of 35%. Wealth holdings are also regionally skewed in the UK, exacerbating regional inequality. The South is considerably more wealthy than the North and this difference is growing over time.

    An iron rule of capitalism is that the rich get richer whilst the poor get poorer. As the saying goes, it’s easy to make money when you have money. This reinforcing feedback loop is perhaps the key dynamic of capitalism. Marx’s general law of capitalist accumulation states that the accumulation of wealth at one pole (capitalists) necessitates the simultaneous accumulation of misery, agony of toil, and unemployment at the opposite pole (workers). Moreover, such reinforcing loops inevitably lead to crashes and crises. It’s high time we replaced capitalism and its reinforcing loop of capitalist accumulation and worker immiseration with a new system based on a balancing loop of capitalist deaccumulation and worker emancipation.

  • Do councils need to make cuts?

    A recent exchange in Sheffield between the Green councillors group on the one hand, and Trade Union & Socialist Coalition / Your Party supporters on the other, has raised an important question: what can councils actually do to resist austerity? For context, Sheffield council provides over 500 public services to the city’s half-a-million plus population. In the run-up to setting this year’s council budget, the Sheffield Your Party proto-branch organised a No Cuts People’s Budget conference to discuss a no cuts budget for the city and invited the Green Party councillors to participate. Unfortunately, not only did the Green councillors refuse the invitation, but they also made clear that they would not be proposing such a budget. Here I will dissect the arguments put forward by the Greens in support of their position.

    None of the arguments made by the Sheffield Greens against a no cuts budget are new. According to them, such a budget would “hasten bankruptcy”, lead to “a freeze of all non-essential spending”, result in “central government intervention”, and many other horrors. Is there any truth to these claims? Unlike in the US, a council in Britain cannot go bust in the same way that a private company can. Because only an act of parliament can dissolve a local authority, council services and the financing to provide them are implicitly underpinned by central government. However, local authorities are legally required to set a balanced budget each year before they can issue council tax bills, set service charges, and so on. Thus, realistically, any budget set by a local authority must be balanced to avoid a legal conflict.

    So how could a no cuts budget be balanced? The answer is through the use of borrowing powers and reserves. The use of borrowing powers and reserves to meet projected deficits – including reserves previously earmarked for other purposes – is, by statute, a matter of judgement for councillors to make. It should be noted as well that just because a budget has been agreed, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be stuck to religiously. The COVID crisis demonstrated the elasticity in the system, with nearly a quarter of councils materially overspending the budgets they agreed at the start of the 2020-21 financial year which, at the time they were voted on, were formally balanced. Although in practice it wouldn’t be possible for a council to overspend on its budgets indefinitely.

    There is nothing to prevent councils from taking out a loan from the bank to properly fund public services. Indeed, this is precisely what Liverpool’s socialist council of 1983-1987 did. The council’s budget included £60m in loans in 1985 and £100m in loans in 1986 to bridge the funding gap, a technique referred to as ‘capitalisation’. As local authority funding is implicitly underpinned by central government, there is essentially zero risk of a council defaulting. This means that bank should always be willing to lend to councils even if they have no obvious way to generate the revenue required to pay the money back. Clearly, then, it is wrong to say that the means cannot be found to avoid making cuts. This is not fundamentally a financial question; it is a question of political will.

    The Sheffield Greens argue that taking out such large loans is irresponsible and stores up problems for the future. But this completely ignores the impact an anti-austerity stand could have in mobilising public support. They would do well to remember that in 1991 Margaret Thatcher and her poll tax were defeated by the mass movement organised against it by Liverpool’s socialist council of the time. Do the Green councillors really think that it would be more difficult to force Starmer to retreat on local council funding than it was to remove Thatcher as prime minister in 1991? Surely it’s worth putting up a bit of a fight! As general secretary of the RMT transport workers’ union Bob Crow used to say: “If you fight you might not always win. But if you don’t fight you’ll always lose”.

    Borrowing money to pay for public services would only be a stop-gap. There would be huge popular support for any council taking this approach, which would put massive pressure on a very weak and unpopular Labour government that has already been forced to make U-turns and concessions on several occasions. If enough councils took this approach it would force central government to fund public services properly. Sadly, the Green councillors in Sheffield don’t seem to understand this. Or perhaps they don’t want to understand it. One of their objections to the no cuts budget was “we don’t think it would be responsible”. This comment is very telling and suggests the Greens are more concerned with respectability than they are with fighting for properly funded public services.